Sunday 18 October 2020
MITSUKO UCHIDA
Piano Recital
Are there people who remember what life during the Blitz was like? When Dame Myra Hess organised the legendary series of recitals at the National Gallery, what comfort and solace did those concerts bring? And how was the “Keep Calm and Carry On Regardless” spirit upheld? The world is now under the cosh again, not by Nazis but unseen enemies lurking in unmasked and unwashed corners, waiting to strike. It is in this modern day siege that the Petworth Festival keeps the morale up. This evening, another Dame M provided a healthy dose of healing.
I am grateful that Dame Mitsuko Uchida dropped Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations in favour of two Schubert sonatas. I have also little doubt that the Schuberts were a greater intepretive proposition, besides challenging the listener that bit more. And what a delight that was too.
The opening movements of Schubert piano sonatas are where the meat is. These are heavenly in length and double the pleasure when exposition repeats are observed. This is music that takes its time, and where time stands still. In Uchida’s hands, every note and every measure meant something.
In the Sonata in C major (D.840), big chords and octaves portrayed defiance and resoluteness, and with its calculated jarring dissonances, a dimension of physical pain and angst was also evinced. In the Sonata in G major (D.894), there was unremitting congeniality and warmth, and I am reminded of the pop song People (People Who Need People). That sounds daft, but the association will always be with me, and this performance became a soothing balm for my ears and bruised soul.
The quite substantial second movement of the C major, now cast in melancholy and pathos of C minor, was one that remained tantalisingly unresolved. With only two movements, Schubert never did complete the work (called the Reliquie because it was then thought to be his last). Would this be his greatest sonata had he not been silenced by an early death? Uchida performed it as if it was.
The three latter movements of the G major (sometimes referred to as the Fantasie) was almost a breeze. The contrasts were refreshing: an excursion into Schubert’s world of lieder in the slow movement, a scherzo with symphonic ideas, but special place had to go to the playful Rondo finale. Its dance-like moves seemed to look forward to ragtime, just like the finale of Beethoven’s Op.111 predicting a future in jazz and boogie woogie. Despite the serious tone in the earlier movements, tongue-in-cheek was never far away in Uchida’s reading, which made for a rhythmic and cheery close.
The chorus of bravos was justly rewarded with an encore, but just a very brief one: Aveu from Schumann’s Carnaval. This was a truly breathtaking and masterly recital, from beginning to end.
Monday 19 October 2020
PETWORTH SUMMER FESTIVAL SPECIAL
The Petworth Festival has enjoyed a five-year relationship with the Royal Academy of Music, the partnership providing opportunities for RAM students and alumni to perform for friendly audiences outside well-trodden concert venues in the capital. This summer festival special concert relived pre-recorded content from earlier in the year, a showcase for younger performers to display their wares.
The concert opened with pianist Harry Rylance performing Liszt’s transcription of Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture, a sizzler filled with myriad orchestral effects downsized for the piano. Downsized or reduced are wrong words indeed, because the pianist is subjected to outsized and outrageous demands for choral, chordal and filigreed passages, all whipped up by just ten fingers. Rylance did a splendid job, thunderous for most part but also sensitive to fine and subtle details.
Next came the Vòreios Trio, comprising oboist Russell Coates, bassoonist Olivia Palmer-Baker and pianist Shang Xiaowen, in Poulenc’s Trio for this unusual combination. Typical for the Frenchman, there was his mock-serious quasi-religious slow opening, followed by frivolity let loose without apology. The trio fully realised its potential for comedic humour in the outer movements, balanced by a slow movement of Mozartian simplicity and purity. Most of all, it was just a fine excuse to wallow in Poulenc’s bittersweet yet juicy melodies. Simply delicious!
The evening concluded with Harry The Piano, not a cartoonish character but the sort of pianist all of us (who have pored over hours, years and decades of piano lessons) long to be. Harry Harris is his real name (I’ve checked) and he is the guy who hogs the piano at cocktail events and becomes the life of the party.
His medley of Gershwin tunes jam packs in Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and hit songs like Fascinatin’ Rhythm, Love Is Here To Stay, Embraceable You, Do It Again, Summertime and I Got Rhythm within the span of just a few minutes. Playing audience requests, he does Climb Every Mountain in the style of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, I Feel Pretty à la Debussy, an Elton John hit in the manner of Rachmaninov, a jazzy Hallelujah Chorus (Billy Mayerl and the striders would have been proud) and Schubert’s Ave Maria as dressed up by Little Richard. That was a blast too. He is no lounge pianist but My Music’s Steve Race come back to life. We are so envious indeed.
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